


The Man Without a Face

by acogna



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1960s, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Unresolved Romantic Tension, maybe sexual tension but that's for later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:53:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25222702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acogna/pseuds/acogna
Summary: When she asks, he tells her about the curse, after he says he loves her: she isn't allowed to look at him. She isn't going to like what she sees if she opens her eyes.Weird niche supernatural 60's AU. Rating may change.
Relationships: Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera
Comments: 10
Kudos: 25





	1. Planter Café

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, okay. I get it, hi.
> 
> Inspiration hit me at the weirdest of times so now I'm taking this small plot bunny and making it a semi-plotted fic, which I plan to keep at a rather shorter length than my usual works. This one is an experimentation of a style that I'm not used to, a very grounded fic with a tongue-in-cheek writing style, which I hope fits the tone and the setting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy this first chapter, and tell me what you think. Had a lot of fun discussing this with a dear friend of mine who cries over E/C as much as I do, and whose headcanon that Christine likes Gabriel the chorus master showed up in this one. Winks cheekily at the screen.

At the end of the long street leading out of town was a store. She couldn't remember what it was _before_ it was a store, but she _did_ remember a time during its interregnum where it was just a building, and nothing but. It swallowed the entire ground floor of a six-story apartment complex, made of brick and plaster older than the concrete of the street itself, and boasted of an endurance that reminded her of what she should have had.

She was so trapped in her own thoughts through the days, through the weeks, through the month that she didn't even notice the change until Meg pointed it out for her.

It was during the ballerina's weekend visit from Paris when they crossed the main street stretching like a wide, withered arm across town. As they were waiting for the stoplight to switch (even with the lack of cars, she was always telling her young friend to be careful about that sort of thing), it was the movement that caught her eye. There was a truck parked in front, blocking traffic that wasn't there. Boxes that could have been as tall as skyscrapers piled up against the windows as staff worked to clear out its contents and dump them in neat piles out onto the sidewalk.

"What's going on there?" she said absentmindedly, and more to herself than to Meg.

"Someone's moving in," Meg answered, and it was so like her to assume that she had been spoken to. A pink bubble inflated by her lips and popped ungracefully with the click of her tongue. "At least, that's what I heard from Maman."

"Here?"

"Apparently. It's like a shop opening or something. Haven't got much to go on, though."

She squinted, pushing her glasses higher up her nose bridge in an attempt to read the lettering painted on the windows, but the boxes had done their absolute best to obscure her view. And even if she could read them, she had no idea of confirming whether or not the words were there before the move.

"I actually thought _you_ would know more," Meg continued, pocketing her hands into her jacket. "You know, since you live here and all."

She shot her friend a look. And she was grateful Meg didn't look back at her, distracted by whatever the midmorning provided.

A sleek, black Cadillac silently slid past the main street just before the light turned red and the walking said go. Though the pair of girls crossed, she couldn't help but let her eyes follow the car, stifling a blinking surprise when it pulled up on the curb right behind the truck. Out from the vehicle emerged a tall figure, clad in black from head to foot like the width of his shoulders and the length of his coat swallowed the sunlight. He approached one of the movers and began talking to him.

"Christine!"

Meg called, about a few strides away from the opposite direction of the shop. Christine didn't even notice she stopped in her path to stare.

"Right, sorry," she said, quick to apologise and hasten her stride to catch up.

She avoided the main street for quite some time since then, and waited for a week to pass. _That should be enough time for the shop to accustom itself,_ she thought, _and then find out there's nothing here for it, and then move on, if it still can._ But she knew that the townsfolk would simply check into whatever it sold, be uninterested in it (for really, they were interested in so little and so much at the same time), and then ignore it out of business. That's how it usually went. She couldn't remember if another store used to sit where the new one did, but there should have been a reason why it was abandoned for so long.

Meg went, then arrived, then went again. It was Monday by the time she put her contact lenses in and convinced herself to take a small detour just to check it out; she was already downtown anyway, might as well.

Retracing her steps, she crossed the street and went the opposite way from where Meg called her. But even approaching the store, she noticed it was… isolated. Even more isolated than she thought. It was the sort of building that she used to believe had the lights above the first floor on after eight, but it didn't have that sort of air this close. There was no sign above the door, and whatever the paint on the old windows used to be definitely wasn't its name either, because it had been wiped off. The windows didn't offer so much as a peek into the interior because of the darkest curtains she'd ever seen blocking the view. On the display set sat a simple phonograph that wasn't spinning, and a paper with unintelligible writing that appeared as if it was asking for staff, aged twenty or above, good with handling antiques.

But the lights were on inside, that much she could tell; they were bright against the dusk. And the store sign indicated it was open in a neat, printed font. She steadied her breath, held the handle and stepped inside.

A chime played first before she saw it, like it was a spell that would have helped reveal the store itself. Turning her head immediately to see it, a wind chime that looked far too interesting for the rest of the knick-knacks she'd seen hung by the frame. Then the shop… didn't so much exist as opened to her. Something clicked inside her, like a switch.

It was a record shop.

Rows and rows of alphabetised vinyl shelves stretched out in front of her like hundreds of roads, even though she only counted two. The walls were half decorated in posters of artists she knew, didn't know, could have known, or Father could have known. All of it was far too well lit in a warm, bright glow from a rather sophisticated and chic chandelier set that hung in the centre of the place. A large counter barred two of the four walls of the store, with which she was sure collectors items hung on the frame display behind them. In the distance, a phonograph was playing a song she didn't recognise but found beautiful all the same. It had enough of an swing that made her want to snap her fingers and match her stride to the beat, sung by a man in English.

She let her feet guide her through the centre aisle, fingertips brushing the records like blades of tall grass. Not only were they alphabetised, but arranged by genres that scattered every inch of the store. And what a collection it was, truly. She'd never seen something so neatly organised or extensive; not even the town library had catalogued its contents like this. Her hands managed to find something, as if she knew it was going to be an item she found interest in. Sliding it from its shelf, it was a Yves Montand, one of the artists she was familiar with through Father.

The emotion that welled in her throat disappeared as soon as it came when she heard the click of a backdoor. Synchronised clicks of Oxford shoes accompanied the figure that moved to the counter, and her eyes found him. He was tall, _impossibly_ tall that she was so baffled with how she missed him before, and he was fitted with a dress shirt that disappeared into the hunger of his black jacket. His face was austere, attractive yet gaunt in the way older men usually were, with sunken eyes and a permanent frown.

Definitely the man she saw that week ago, from the Cadillac, just when he was unpacking the place from its boxes. A man as tall, dark and elegant as his store. Maybe kind of eerie too.

She attempted to pay him no heed and picked up another record filed under Montand's name to bring her mind back, knowing it would be rude to stare for too long.

"Not his best, personally."

 _Wait._ That was a voice that was… oh, God, that couldn't be real.

"Pardon?" she managed.

From the corner of her eye, the man pointed at the shelf she was perusing, and she noticed absentmindedly his hands were gloved in a leather material as dark as his suit. "The one before it, _Étoile 58._ The more superior, if you're to ask me."

 _Oh._ So that really _was_ his voice. His lips moved then, didn't they? As did a flinch of chagrin on his end, maybe.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to be a disturbance to you. Carry on."

Definitely.

She was so lost in adjectives to describe it as (rich, sonnant, so terribly, _terrifically_ baritone), that the silence she left in their wake made her go red almost immediately and forced her to grasp for a reply.

"I'm not really that familiar with Yves. I was just looking, someone of mine knew him."

He leaned over the counter, watching her hands. "Whoever you knew certainly had good taste."

A wave of sadness rubbed her shoulders tenderly, like an old consoling friend would. But it felt like neither.

The song on the phonograph, which she realised sat on the edge of the counter where it turned to meet the wall, opened into a brass solo that tempted her to tap her feet to the tune.

"That's a lovely song," she started again, eager to change the subject.

"Ah." He moved to the phonograph, staring at the rotating disk with the fascination of a student towards a novel. "'The Way You Look Tonight,' from _Sinatra Sings Days of Wine and Roses, Moon River, and Other Academy Award Winners."_ He scoffed before lowering the volume through a knob she couldn't see. "A mouthful of a title."

She blinked, and her eyes gravitated instantly to the spinning record. "Sinatra?"

"A favourite." His hands drummed the beat of the horns on the tabletop, and his scowl deepened more in curiosity than anything. "Did you come for the job opening?"

"Oh, I'm afraid not, Monsieur, I was just perusing."

"That's nothing to be afraid of." Without hesitation, he stopped the record with a shatter of a scratch and removed it from the turntable with an ease that shouldn't have existed. "If I may bother you for a few moments, then. Why not take a few Montands that catch your interest, and let us hear them out?"

She had absolutely no reason to stay. It was too easy to come up with any reason to say she couldn't linger but her heart had already cast a part of itself into the shop, lost to her forever.

She picked _Étoile 58_ and something else. The something else didn't really matter, she was only humouring him. And she didn't miss the keen look in his eye either when he spotted the cover in her hands once she gave it to him.

"Shall we start with this one, then?" he said, sliding the vinyl disk out of its sleeve with the grace of a professional. It was the other album, a yellow, blue, and red rectangle-splattered cover with a man in black dancing across its side. The title _Dansez avec Yves Montand_ sprawled out in wide letters across the top.

"He's a better actor than he is a musician," he continued, setting the needle on the disk and cranking it, and once it spun the music cascaded out of the horn in upbeat, trumpet-filled waves.

"Really?" she disagreed, swaying along to the music. "I think he's quite good."

He shot her a look of obvious feigned disbelief she couldn't help but smile back. The tune spewed itself into the air as they both listened to it with the care of unqualified critics. Well, at least _she_ had been. The owner of a record shop this meticulous should have known a couple of things.

The needle scratch of the record violently pulled her from the garden ballroom daydream that the horns and the snares were painting for her.

But he didn't need to indicate that he was playing the second one. This one clearly had strokes of the first: that deliberate, professional control of the key and the notes that Montand seemed to have (and that Father must have admired in the artist, surely), but it was nothing like the jazz tune of the first. It was slow, with softer drums and the cascade of the guitar notes trickling down with the gentleness of a watering can. Montand's vocals immediately caused the room around her to shift, until she was sitting at the edge of a cafe table in the midmorning, vines and other quaint greenery painting the building on the opposite to her. Montand had the stage, singing lowly into a microphone that he was bending like a lady in his arm.

"Quaint, isn't it?" a voice spoke.

Suddenly a tall, dark man in a tall, dark coat sat next to her at the table, removing his hat and groaning with the weight of years when his back met the rest. His eyes flashed yellow, for a very brief moment, and suddenly she was back in the record shop.

There was a very brief but stretched-out silence when her eyes met him. They weren't yellow, but one side was dark hazel and the other was a frighteningly bright blue.

She pointed at the record player. "How much for that one?"

He scoffed in triumph. _"Étoile 58?"_

She gave him a victory in a leisurely grin; she had always known, anyway. "Why not? The owner's recommendation must be worth it."

He slid both disks into their sleeves, and then into their plastic, sealing them as good as new. "11.60 for the mono, 25.25 for the stereo."

She reached into her purse for the mono.

"I didn't say you had to pay for it."

That stopped her.

He wrapped _Étoile 58_ in its packaging, then handed it to her with both of his fingers delicately wrapped around the edges. "Consider it a gift. Not many customers are willing to indulge themselves in such an experience." A brief look of disappointment crossed his odd eyes before masking themselves again. "Not many customers, regardless."

She took it from him gently, careful not to brush the gloves once she did. A flick of her wrist tucked it under her arm as she shuddered to recall that scene at the cafe again. Perhaps it would come back.

"What was the name of that track?" she asked.

"'Planter Café,'" he replied simply, far too close to the manner in which Montand said it that she couldn't resist but tilt her head. "Give the entire thing a listen, and I would like to know what you thought of it."

"And if my opinion contradicts yours?"

"That simply means the music did its purpose to stoke within you thoughts, imaginations, fantasies that should not necessarily coincide with mine, indicating _good_ music." He placed a gloved hand on his chest in a firm but sarcastic gesture. "And it also means my opinion is better."

She laughed. She couldn't remember laughing like that in a long time.

It was a funny sight when she tried to recreate the sliding motion that the shop owner did with the vinyl and nearly dropped it. Mama said that it was alright, and that she should take her time trying to accustom herself to the dreadful old phonograph.

The one Mama owned in her quaint home was quite old, but she liked seeing it anyway, and now she had something to give the machine meaning.

"Where did you find something to play, Christine?" Mama asked, blanketed by a cutely knit duvet that curled upon on her lap like a pink, yarn cat. Her first attempts at knitting had surely been crude, but they improved over time.

"A record shop opened downtown a few weeks ago," she replied, taking the seat next to the phonograph.

"Oh, how lovely. Your father would have loved that sort of thing."

'Planter Café' filled in the space where they both should have talked about Father.

She had a crush on Gabriel, the bartender, but didn't want to talk about it. It probably died long ago, and that was most likely the case, but she still found him cute regardless, the same way her head turned at new folk passing through the town to get to wherever they needed to be. This place was never anyone's final destination.

She only intended to sit in at the bar for a few and it managed to loosen her tongue just a little that anything he would say instantly became funny. Carlotta's voice filled the stage in a calm, fantastic air, captivating the audience who watched. (And she knew it was Carlotta, because she sang the same song every night.)

"Did you see the sign?" Gabriel asked after he cracked another joke.

"What sign?" she asked.

He pointed past her to the slip of paper tacked onto the corkboard near the entrance. 'Asking for new nighttime performances,' it read. Well, it seemed to plead more than ask.

She sighed blue. "Gabe, you can't ask me to—"

"Too soon?"

She sobered up considerably and stared.

"I know, right, I'm sorry," he apologised immediately, but the damage was done.

"I'm going home."

"Chris, you—"

She stood up properly to prove her point, ignoring how her head spun just a bit there.

Gabriel let her go. She still had a mind to walk home in a sort-of straight line and open her door after only two tries, and had that same mind to worry over the record cover she felt she lost.

After a long bath and a couple of wine glasses, she laid on her couch and listened to Montand sing 'Planter Café' for the hundredth time. But as hard as she tried, she could only remember the brick cafe and the vines next door and the corner table she sat in, and never the tall, dark man with the glowing yellow eyes, who only emerged at the door of the cafe right on the cusp of her sleep.


	2. Der Hölle Rache

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank everyone for the warm response I got for that first chapter. It really pushes me forward! So here's something a bit longer.
> 
> I've been getting questions like, does Erik not wear a mask in this AU? He does, but it comes with a very strange twist. And it's going to come much later.
> 
> Some trigger warnings for vague mentions of child abuse in the first part of the chapter. You have been warned.

_Dammit._

He stared into the mirror in the bathroom, which was the only mirror in the house. It was a great oval of a thing, whose shape reminded him too much of an egg and whose rich, baroque embellishments belonged in a mansion instead of this small apartment. He didn't find fondness in mirrors or any reflective surface (which was perhaps the most pathetic reason as to why he turned down a television set) since he feared rather irrationally that one day he would find a girl rather beautiful and the next he'd see a monster staring back at him.

He stared into his face for a long time: into the mismatched eyes, into where the skin of his forehead disappeared into his hair, into the valleys and canyons of his aging face. Nothing, so far. He looked like any other man, if he crossed the street, and no one would have passed another glance.

So when? Did it truly take this long for it to happen?

A sad laugh bubbled at the back of his throat but he didn't let it go. He shouldn't be looking forward to it.

He left the bathroom and into the wide expanse of his new living room, six floors above the record shop downstairs. It still surprised him how empty the place was, even with the addition of his new grand piano that no doubt ate half of the area that even the couch and dining table seemed to plead for space. With the simplistic furniture and filtered windows it felt lonely, empty, like he just moved in.

Well, yes, he did. That was two weeks ago.

Like yesterday, he walked into the kitchen and brewed a cup of coffee with the machine, cursing himself for the lack of beer when he opened the refrigerator as he did with the cupboard and its lack of wine. And like yesterday, he touched his face as if waiting for it to molt into his hands.

It was something about his face. Something about love that was connected to his face, a curse long forgotten and so vague that it never stopped to haunt him. He checked his watch to ensure again the shop wasn't opening in a few minutes before sighing into the grey morning.

He thought about the woman who bought the Montand all those days ago, and swore he'd never seen hair so golden, or eyes so blue, or a soul who liked to get lost in music just as much as he did. He heard 'Planter Café' when he spun the record for her and thought he had imagined them both in a coffee shop in Paris together.

He played something older on the phonograph to rid the miasma that wafted over his kitchen. An old aria from an opera that his mother liked to play on their own phonograph often.

 _When you will find love,_ his mother had said, _you'll turn into the most hideous thing the world has ever seen. When you'll fall in love, it will kill you._

 _Doesn't it kill everyone?_ he had asked.

 _It will make it impossible for you,_ she replied. _And you will never love again._

The hit came down with the clink of his coffee mug. It was too loud that he flinched and knocked the sugar off the counter, sending the glass bottle shattering into pieces over the floor. The white crystals of sugar ran into the cracks of the boards like shy, tiny stars.

"Dammit," he said, aloud this time.

He had the mind to bring the disc he played for himself downstairs and finish it there, but looking at the sleeve properly told him it was an opera of Meyerbeer's, and it was a good explanation as to why he hated it. He scoffed, changed it to Mozart's _Die Zauberflöte_ that he kept hanging on the wall, and let the phonograph paint for him a makeshift stage. Even though he had flipped the shop sign to signify it open (and yes, he checked), he had no morning company except for the fainting Tamino and the three women from Mozart's tale.

Then the chime rang again in a key that was _not_ Mozart's, half past eleven.

His eyes searched for hers, and found them. The girl with too-golden hair.

He found himself fixing the lapels of his coat, and shuddered at what that could have looked like to her, but she made no indicator that she disliked it. In fact, she looked rather ecstatic.

"It was wonderful," she said simply.

"What was?" he asked, feeling rather stupid he didn't know what exactly she was pertaining to.

"Yves Montand, like you said he would be. I enjoyed him very much."

Relief broke into a thin sigh of a smile. "As he has that reputation, surely. Thankfully, my opinion doesn't contradict yours."

She laughed at that, like she laughed the last time. The only difference now was that his throat fluttered a bit like the way she batted her lashes. No, more like butterfly wings.

_Stop that._

He coughed in a feat to pretend to be absentminded. "Is that why you came back? To simply tell me you enjoyed my recommendation?"

"Well, and to find something for me," she said too simply, with an ease that he couldn't have.

Then, like they both knew it was coming (and perhaps they did), the Night Queen began her famous aria across the acoustics of the phonograph, strings booming with the weight of gales as she began to demand of her daughter the impossible.

"Mozart," she called out quietly.

"The Night Queen aria," he finished, though he was sure she knew that. He wanted to add he knew the vocalist just by the way she caught her strength in the first line of the passage, Lucine Amara.

"I didn't know you owned a classics section."

"You can put that blame on me, I was the one who distracted you with Montand. Shall I?"

When she nodded, he opened the counter flap wide enough so he could pass through and latched it back closed.

Oh, something about the way they stood next to each other changed a bit of everything, and he thought she knew that too. The silence when they both found him standing next to her stretched on uncomfortably, but the Night Queen's staccatos managed to fill in that space, at the very least.

"Right, sorry, let me just…" And he walked off the rest.

He found the classics shelf faster than he expected himself to, with his mind buzzing with thousands of thoughts that were no words, all annoyance. He pressed his gloved palm against the records once he guided her there and he felt his entire body relax at the touch.

"I have a rather extensive collection." He pointed down the aisle all the way until the end, where the shelves met the counter. "And you'll find I'm rather proud of the condition I keep them in."

"I was actually looking for something a bit more specific." He noticed that she had to crane her neck to get her gaze up to the level of his head. Charming. "A violinist named… uh, Yehadi, or Yehudi or something like that. Menhuin."

Something clicked inside of him, and it shot a beam of warm light straight up his spine. "Yes, Yehudi Menhuin." He quickly reached his arm across a thin distance to the M section of the shelf, then pulled out the forth disk from the top of the pile, flipping it in his fingers to present the sleeve to her. "Lucky for you, he's eavesdropping."

Her eyes glimmered with something faint, the same sort of look she had when he played 'Planter Café' for her, as she reached out to take the vinyl from his hands.

"I don't mean to pry," he continued before he was able to stop himself, "but do you play the violin?"

"Oh?" She looked up from staring at the sleeve and then shook her head with wide eyes. "Oh, heavens no. I knew someone, though, who could." A fond smile passed her face, far too genuine to be something coming from the necessity of small talk.

There was a soft sigh he tried to disguise. If she could have played violin, it would have been an interesting opportunity to teach her some of the skills he already felt rotting away in the muscle memory of his old arms. "Very fortunate for both of us to have been a carrier to his taste in Yves Montand and in talent. Do you play anything, then?"

She shook her head. "I sing."

Another click. He would have thought his heart stopped dead if he didn't blink. He already forgot the name of whoever was singing Mozart's flute aria in the background.

That must have stirred something in her too because she quickly added, "I mean, I used to."

He couldn't stop himself. "Used to?"

She flushed a quaint little red that stretched his lips into a matching awkward grin. "I stopped a long time ago."

But he wasn't satiated just yet. "Follow me, please."

He led her back to the counter, which he opened and gated once again to spring up the cashier. The sound of the register opening nearly shocked him just from the sheer rarity of its sound as she paid the price of her record in cash.

"Now," he said, sliding the sleeve across the counter, "just a moment."

His frame bent as he crouched to retrieve something from a cabinet underneath the registry, in a musty-smelling alcove that belonged right next to his heart. His gloved fingers, barely bothered by the texture, picked the third record from the left with an unfailing memory, and wiped off the thin coating of dust that accumulated over the surface of the wrapper.

"Another present?" she blinked, lifting her eyebrow.

"Something like that, yes."

He carefully peeled at the paper, unveiling a sleeve of an old man's derelict portrait, hunched over the clutter of his scientific, alchemical workplace. The pity in his eyes was indescribable and so was the unmistakable persona of his name.

"Gounod's _Faust,"_ she muttered breathlessly, as he pulled back the paper so they could properly bask in its glory.

"From the Stradivarius label." He placed it gingerly on top of Menhuin. "Particularly rare too."

She blinked, incredulous. "You can't be giving this to me."

"I'm not," he said, calculated, but the look in her eyes was one between relief and disappointment. "I'd like you to listen to this, if you can, and return it to me once you're finished. I think you'll find some enjoyment listening to the Marguerite in this particular recording. See if she inspires anything in you."

She didn't move to pick up the records but gently placed her palm on the cover, stroking the poor, melting face of Faust with her gentle touch.

"So…" she started, "you want me to just, listen to this."

"Yes."

"And then bring it back."

"And then tell me what you think."

She scoffed. "So this is a rented item?"

"No, this is a present, as I've said before. Though you're to return it, I'm giving you the recording itself, for I know that will stay with you forever the moment it's played for you once and only once. That's all it has to take."

She blinked. "Once."

"And _only_ once."

A pause. It was measured in time with Tamino and Papageno arguing about the stage before their confrontation.

"How can you trust me with this?" she asked, but there was a genuine curiosity in her voice that bordered on a further question: _why me?_

He answered them both. "Because you seem a kindred spirit with music. I didn't think they existed anymore. And I would like to indulge you."

She flushed and he swore he'd never seen another shade of pink so gentle. But her hands still rested on the records and slid them closer to her. "You're giving me reasons to come back."

He grinned a wolf's smile, heart racing as if he was running through a forest. "I was under the impression you liked it here."

The pink of her cheeks turned crimson and his wolf smirk laughed. He was going to try and replicate that exact shade with his grand prix roses upstairs.

"How sure are you I'd even enjoy this?" she challenged, tucking the discs under her arm as she did before.

"I simply know." He couldn't describe it aptly for her, or he'd become much more like himself, or scare her away. And for once, he didn't want to frighten her into forgetfulness.

The record scratched, asking to be turned to the other set of the B-side. Silence permeated the place and he found it strange that it suited the shop too well.

She held out her hand. "It's Christine."

He took it gently, with fear lacing his knuckles and warmth flooding through them at her touch. "Erik."

She came back after three days with a wide grin and the _Faust_ disc, and spent far too long in the shop talking about the strong performance of Marguerite, the charisma of Siebel, the compelling nature of Faust but the grim and enchanting voice of Mephistopheles. And he wouldn't have complained even if a queue showed up to take him away from their conversation, which it didn't, and he was grateful for once for the lack of customers.

She asked for another classical recommendation, and when he asked why, she said it was for her Maman who loved listening to the genre. The 1952 Heifetz encore compilation sufficed quite well for that.

As she was paying for it, he tried to absentmindedly ask her what artist she liked. She said Édith Piaf, and he liked to think she was none the wiser.

The next day, he dusted off his 1956 _La Vie En Rose_ and let the opening trumpets cascade him away. But she didn't show that day. Or the next. By the third day, he ended up playing something Sinatra entirely, and it was that third day when she returned.

She smiled at him when the chime sounded to signal her entrance, and it was the sort of smile that told him she knew his plan all along.

He smiled back, caught, or not caught. He didn't care.

"Do _you_ play an instrument?" she asked.

Fitting, how her questions always managed to align with whatever was on the phonograph. It was Menhuin, now, and his brilliant rendition of Tchaikovsky.

"Well…" he began, and then stopped himself.

"Well?" she parroted.

He hesitated, but that tilt of her head did him in. "A few. The violin, and the piano. The guitar, being the more portable of them all, or the one that garners the most trends these days."

That left her struck, somehow, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what exactly it was about that which rendered her speechless as he wrapped up the Charles Aznavour for her. There was a certain sorrow to the way she carried herself out of the store, and for a moment he was nervous that he said something that would condemn that meeting to be the last.

Thankfully, he was wrong.

She returned the next day, which she never did. She never visited consecutive days.

And all to say he had hands fitted for the guitar.

And maybe a discussion of Mozart's _Don Giovanni_ too.

They fell into a routine, and he liked routines. She'd show, they'd talk, sometimes she wouldn't even buy a disc but he appreciated the company and the matching opinion on Heifetz. He didn't know the days when she'd appear so suddenly but that made the anticipation something exciting. And the disappointment that would follow after far too crushing.

When he walked back to his apartment one afternoon, he felt the skin of his cheekbones soften.

He measured the days in her visits, and spent his hours in the company of his morning coffee attempting to pinpoint what the pattern of her visits were. Was it even days, or odd? Or every other fourth day after a multiple of three?

His wild guess today was that she wasn't going to show, but there was always a part of him that thought she would. But she didn't, not today.

The chime that sounded a few hours into the afternoon had already been too late in the imaginary window he placed for her to visit.

He would have assumed the young man was a customer, with dark hair and toned skin, coddled in the casual wear he often saw students outfit themselves with, But he didn't seem very particular with the records (oh, but the boy _was_ interested, but it usually did come with the charm of first entering the shop), instead looking directly at him with an almost shy yet accusatory stare.

"You're the owner, right?" the boy asked, in a tone so familiar to him he felt his age creep up like claws on his shoulders.

"Who else?" he said tentatively, ignoring the shocked look the boy tried to hide at the sound of his voice. (It got old watching customers react to that, but it never became boring.)

The boy wrung his hands together, approaching the counter with a rather notable lack of confidence. "I… um, I'm here for the job."

His eyebrow shot up. "The job?"

"You posted, outside. Looking for staff, aged twenty or above—"

"Good at handling antiques, yes." He swore he took that down yesterday. Or was that last Monday?

"And I'd like to apply."

He folded his gloved hands into each other; this was enough dawdling. "You're Reza."

The boy nodded. "And you're Monsieur Erik."

He grimaced at the title, and not because Reza found it fit to say who he was. He didn't need to; he knew from the moment he walked up the counter he was Nadir's boy just from the way he held his head.

"Did your father really ask you to call me that?"

Reza shrugged. "No, but I thought it would be polite of me."

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. The cartilage there was beginning to feel tender, probably from stress.

"So…" Reza dragged the syllable across the floor like a grating chair, "do I get the j—?"

"What was the seventh song on the tracklisting of Serge Gainsbourg's first 1968 album?"

"…What?"

"Answer the question."

Reza flailed his arms. "But you said just good at handling antiques, I didn't think that this would be a test!"

His voice became that of a stern proctor. "The _seventh song_ on Serge Gainsbourg's _first_ 1986 album."

Reza's eyes steeled with determination at his own prodding. _Ah,_ there it was. The spitting image of his father.

"'La Javanaise,'" Reza answered, "from _Bonnie and Clyde."_

He nodded, satisfied, and unlocked the latch of the counter open so the boy could enter.

He was cashing for her that _La Vie En Rose_ he never played for her, that she never heard, but she wanted to buy anyway.

"You have help," she noticed, and he found himself hanging on every syllable of her voice.

They both glanced at Reza going through the 'chanson' section, checklist in one hand and the back of a Nino Ferrer he didn't really appreciate too well in the other.

"Yes, well," he shrugged. "I forgot to take down that advertisement and he came in asking for it. And since I've had a rather modest customer rotation now, it couldn't hurt to hire."

"I've never seen him before," she continued. "I thought I knew everyone in this town."

"He's the son of a… friend." He bit the word in two, because Nadir wasn't really a friend but he wasn't a stranger either (unfortunately). "He's new. Here for the summer before he goes back to university."

They were both watching the sleeve as it slid into its packaging. Reza moved into the back room for another list and they were left in that quiet. And he should have cursed his twelve-minute-ago self to the grave and hell beyond for not putting anything on the phonograph. That damn Nino Ferrer for all he cared, anything was better than this.

"I haven't seen you out in town that often," she pointed out, breaking it terribly. "And you've been staying here for nearly a month."

He froze. Their hands were just about to brush.

"I'm not too fond of crowded places," he stated, far colder than he intended. "Or places in general."

"Oh."

A silence, but shorter this time. He was beginning to hate them more, and he thought that was impossible.

"Why?" he asked.

She averted her gaze back to her purchase. "Well, do you drink?"

"Yes, wine and whiskey. Champagne for when the feeling is supposed to be festive."

There was a small smile at his attempt at a joke. "I was asking because there's a bar in town, just down the street from here and a little to the right. I think you know that."

"No, I didn't." He did.

She turned almost just as hesitant as him, but with more bravery in that split second than he ever held in his lifetime. "Well, I was going tonight, and I was just wondering if you wanted to come with me."

The colour drained from his face and his heart stuttered a violent staccato.

"I'm sorry, Christine, but I…" he sighed before he could continue, then cursed himself further when her face subtly fell, "I have to decline."

Her face turned pink just the way he was fond of, but he was too distracted by how painful the paralysis of his hands had become. "I apologise, was I too forward? I just thought it'd be nice to share a nice drink with you."

He wanted to stop talking but his stubbornness triumphed before his pragmatism did. "No—no you weren't, _I_ must apologise, truly, but it has absolutely nothing to do with you. I… I just can't. I implore you to ask another time, but not this."

"I understand," she assured, but no, she didn't understand, and she couldn't.

She took the disc from his hands and left very unceremoniously for that day. She always left unceremoniously but she took a part of the shop and therefore a part of him with her out that door whenever she could. But now it felt as if she left with much more than just another record.

Reza came out from the back room, looking around the shop curiously as if assessing the terrain.

His usual grey sigh turned even darker as he jammed the register shut. "She's gone, if that's what you're wondering."

And Reza ducked under the counter latch, which he knew was a habit he hated.

"It's funny, really," the young man said.

"What is?" he replied.

Reza shrugged. "I already thought you two were dating."

Dammit, he couldn't help himself. He went to the bar that evening after he taught Reza how to close up the shop properly.

It looked much like his shop, actually, engulfing the fraction of a corner building's ground floor. But it was darker, blooming with light the way the rest of the town didn't, with the windows wide and clear enough that even from the sidewalk he could peer through them. He saw her, there, sitting at the edge of the bar closest to him, halfway through what looked like a glass of wine.

Perhaps it was something about the way that her hair was tied in a curled chignon, fray locks around the edges of her face and in front of her hair that made him regret any word that left his mouth if it wasn't spent complimenting her.

She was approached by someone behind the bar, perhaps the bartender, and she seemed to sigh grey, but giggled amiably. He deserved the stab of…. whatever emotion that wasn't jealousy welling up in his lungs. It couldn't be jealousy. He didn't have the right to at all, _he_ declined this.

_It was for her own good._

_Bull-fucking-shit._

He had half the mind to enter when he spotted a paper hanging by the outdoor pillar, tacked onto it haphazardly. Tearing it from the pillar, his eyes glazed over the words desperately to distract him from her. 'Asking for new nighttime performances,' it read. Well, it seemed to grovel more than plead.

That's when he heard someone singing in the bar, so yes, it probably had a stage, and therefore was in need of some talent. And whoever was singing sounded horrific, a dramatic soprano who thought the word 'dramatic' meant stage presence.

The first thought he had was if he managed to pack his old guitar in the move. Before he knew it, he was retracing his steps back home just to check.

"Dammit," he said, aloud this time, and folded the flyer into neat little squares.


	3. Strangers in the Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for a cliché scene with a cliché song for a cliché sort of plot, cliché.

The visits to the record store dropped, and in doing so, increased the visits to the bar instead. She began to appear at the same spot more frequently, at the stool where Gabriel saw her most often, and while neither of them complained, it was a silent acknowledgement from both that something was very… off.

It was the third night she showed up that he only poured her a quarter of a wine glass to get her started, which she frowned pretty quickly at. Her exasperation shouldn't be warranted, even; she had usually dropped by for a glass or two, then a bottle to finish alone at home.

"Gabriel," she chastised.

Gabriel put the bottle of wine next to her glass and crossed his arms. "Chris, talk."

She scoffed and took what little of the wine was there, draining the cup empty. "This isn't going to be an interrogation."

And yet, he poured back the same amount. "It isn't even good wine."

"Well, it hasn't been a good evening."

"Is this about Raoul?"

She downed it again, and she blinked slowly, setting the glass noisily on the bar despite the cacophony of chatter around them. Even mentioning his name brought back longings of simpler times, of a friendship that could have felt like something more, a boy that slipped from her grasp as fast as the winds that carried him away from town did. The same sort of fate that happened to everyone she knew: gone. They were all going to go. She shouldn't have thought better.

 _Kindred spirit with music,_ right.

"No, just…" she gestured off, resigned, "not now."

The displeasure must have been obvious in her face, because Gabriel's pride shrunk into the shadows of the shelves behind him. "Uh… sure."

Gabriel scratched the back of his hair, eyes roving whatever he could find, over the empty stage, her tired expression, the patrons taking their seats all around, with smoke wafting over the air for a thick, sensual but altogether gloomy miasma. It should have been even a bit charming, but she was still much too sober for that.

"Carlotta's late?" she suddenly asked, surprised at how convincing the interest in her voice seemed.

Gabriel shook his head. "She's never late. But the flyer I posted outside was gone a couple of days ago, so I'm wondering if it's a new face."

She shrugged, trying to find something interesting in the cup marks in the mahogany. Then the stage lights brightened from the corner of her eye. Someone walked on, someone who was _definitely_ not Carlotta, and she froze.

A perfect caricature of a walking shadow sat at the performance stool, alone: tall, dark, but with the addition of a gleaming, beautiful guitar that seemed to sing without having even been strummed once. The shadow positioned himself rather uncomfortably and adjusted the short microphone to cater to his height, but with the instrument snug perfectly on his lap like it belonged there and nowhere else. There was something in his posture that forced him rigidly tense, erratic and nervous, as if stage fright had been an understatement. He looked viscerally frightened by all the eyes on him, and his ragged breath was audible through the speakers.

Whispers scattered the crowd like the shattering of a glass. Who was this? And where was Carlotta?

Gabriel hunched over, transfixed on the stage like everyone else had been. "Hm, never seen _him_ before."

She could feel Gabriel's eyes on her, waiting for a snarky response, but she couldn't give one.

"Good evening," the performer spoke, interrupting everyone's chatter and sending the bar into an almost eerie hush. Whether it was the sound of his voice or the strangeness of his appearance that did the trick, the effect appeared to not have worked as intended.

He gulped, and she could see even from the distance he was looking across the crowd anxiously for any sort of salvation. She knew that look, of wanting to disappear into thin air right then and there; she had felt it too many times upon audition stages _not_ to see it in another's eyes.

"I'm very sure you were all expecting la Carlotta tonight," he continued, "but I'm here under the very eager request for new entertainment. Consider this a brief recess in her performance streak."

He strummed the guitar without his hands on the frets once, twice, then embellished a riff to test his hands. Those steel, pitched notes pierced the quiet of the air with masterful precision, while the rest of the venue breathed a gentle sigh and resumed their talking, eyes tearing away to continue the evening's revelries.

But she didn't look away. As if by some miracle, his eyes found hers, across the expanse, and the tension in his posture eased well with that wolf's grin of his.

A waterfall of questions spilled over her, and she couldn't pick one from the sensation of having them forced into her gasping lungs. _What on earth is he doing? What could he possibly hope to gain like this? Why was he so afraid of people, and yet…?_

Then the first chord played, and the audience unsuccessfully drowned him out as they lost their attention so quickly. And though she didn't know where the piece would lead her, it held her gently in its arms and waltzed with her slowly across the floor, each note and chord and pluck from the instrument swirling around in skilled, perfect circles.

Then he began to sing Sinatra. _Strangers in the Night,_ was the first lyric, and she assumed that to be its title too.

Sinatra, he once said. Perfect for dancing.

But she was never going to hear Sinatra sing it again, not when she heard a voice like this grace each syllable that way, that deeply, caressing each note he sung in a tone of elegance nothing could ever replicate.

Suddenly they were meeting on the dance floor, the place empty but not lonesome, without his guitar in his hand or the wine getting to her tongue, even though they clearly looked as if neither of them wanted to meet. But the sensation held her gently by the inside of her ribcage and refused to let go. She was surprised to find she didn't want it to.

A smile broke out on her face like the moon waking to meet the night. Whatever ached in her throat turned into a swarm of butterflies that peppered her neck and nose and face in soft touches. She couldn't name the feeling, but she called it ambivalence first and prayed it wouldn't escalate further.

He played a musical intermission with the dexterity only a strange musician could have, and she forgot about her horrible wine, for a while. His eyes closed and he leaned into the strumming embellishment, and how fascinated she was as his hands moved across the frets like a dancer.

"He's very good," Gabriel remarked when the song ended and the applause clattered quietly throughout the bar.

He took a simple bow, holding his guitar the way one would a violin, and she curled her fingers around the wine glass. He still looked shaken, half in the euphoria of the spotlight and half in that all too familiar fear, before his disappearing act took him like smoke behind the simple curtains.

Without another thought, she gathered up her coat and heard nothing else in the bar but the last of his voice's echo. It called to her, and she chased it down like a strand of gold in a maze made of twilight and dim hallways.

The strand of gold led to a quiet spot near the exit of the backstage, towards the shadow zipping up what looked like to be the case to his guitar. In the lowlight, he looked more like a ghost.

"That was…"

His eyes widened. Oh, that was quite a useless sentence, even if it managed to catch his attention. No word could ever describe whatever she'd just heard.

Red tinged her cheeks the moment she spoke, but comfort flooded soothingly cold through her when she realised he was probably just as embarrassed as him. She could tell from his posture and snappy, flinching behaviour that reminded her of a cornered rat than it did a record shop owner who kept his word well on his guitar-playing.

He laughed to diffuse the air. And she laughed too, thinking so foolishly it was impossible for so stern and gaunt a face to laugh.

"Did you like it?" he asked, and she wasn't so sure what _it_ was, exactly.

"Yes," she answered too simply. She liked all of it.

Something in his eyes was so inviting, and something in his smile was so exciting too, and she giggled echoing the lyrics so casually in her head. They both felt like glimmering in this quiet section of the bar, too close to a crowd to notice and too far from them to care.

"I didn't have the range for Édith Piaf, if you must know," he casually spoke, taking the guitar like a briefcase in his hands. "If I did, I would have sung something of hers. I know how much you like her."

But if he did that, she could never listen to the Piaf record she bought from him, ever again, and she shook her head.

"Surely," and he stopped, careful with his words like any small sound from the silence could break them apart, and he handed each of them to her with the careful grace only a record seller would own, "you know I sang only for you."

Roses bloomed in her chest, and she felt the petals tickle her throat.

"Oh, Erik."

"And I didn't much like the idea, really, of getting up on a stage and singing for a number of strangers, but I felt I should have shared a moment with you when the opportunity came available to me." He rambled on, combing one of his hands through his hair (and what nice hands he had, really). "Ah, it had been so easy to accept, and it wasn't that I would have minded sharing an evening drinking with you. I think the time with you would have been grand—"

"Then why did you reject my offer before?"

Her question tore the space between them and she swore she could hear it being ripped like cloth, seam after seam being undone ungratefully in the silence.

"I…" he began, then looked like he shouldn't have, "my words still stand. I haven't the slightest comfort being around people."

"And yet you did this for me."

"Yes."

She felt the flowers reach the peak of their bloom then wilt entirely. _Then say yes, next time._

_God, there's a next time._

"Are you leaving?" she asked, in the hopes it would distract them both, but she didn't know what to expect when it left her rather forlorn.

He looked out to the backdoor, then back to her. "Why?"

She shrugged like it should have been obvious to him, but she supposed they were both being difficult. "It's… nothing."

"No, it's not nothing exactly." A tone in his voice appeared as if it rectified immediately his mistake. He tilted his head in a subtle gesture that reminded her of a nightingale. "Allow me to buy you a drink before I depart."

He ended up staying for about two glasses of whiskey, and her another glass of bad wine, as they disappeared both into the corner of the bar and out the door, with the evening being none the wiser.

"Could you walk me home?" she asked before she could even think of it.

The loosening bit of alcohol's doing, no doubt. The midnight wind was cold when it blew through her hair and fluttered his coat, tendrils of shadow clinging to his back and appearing almost like wings.

"I… don't know where that is," he said matter-of-factly.

"Which is why you're going to walk me to it." Wrapping her red scarf around her neck, she gazed up at the streetlamp, dreaming it could be as lonely as her. She stepped forward into the yawning night. "Are you coming?"

He really looked like a shadow, wanting to disappear under the attention of an audience, and all she could feel was sympathy, a measure of pleasure that brought her heart to a flutter when she remembered how beautifully he had sung. And even then, he looked across the distance towards her, eyes uncertain, but how she gave the look tried to say it all.

_It's alright. You can go._

He shifted at that, fingers shimmering across the handles of the guitar case but his eyes sparked almost golden in the dark, like lights, like a distant candle.

Instead, he stepped forward, and the town's evening sidewalk swallowed them both into blissful oblivion.

"You really weren't kidding about the guitar," she spoke, after speaking with him for a while, after speaking what should have been hundreds of times.

Like a wish come true, the walk back to her apartment and so did their sobering conversation stretched on and on. She found fondness in the way she craned her head to try and peer at his emotions behind the high collar of his rather large coat and what seemed to be the mask of cordial displeasure he desperately tried to hide behind. They were being followed by movement of birds in the wind and in the trees, and the world didn't seem so lonely for a while.

"It's been quite some time since I picked it up," he replied, lifting it a bit as if the instrument inside the case was a living thing, leaping at the mention of its name. "I play the piano more often than I do the guitar or violin these days. Perhaps my unpracticed skill is a result of my lethargy."

She scoffed at his attempt of humility. "You certainly didn't sound out of practice."

"How terrible, she saw right through me. I'm still very pleased to hear you've enjoyed tonight's performance."

"Actually, I enjoyed it because of you."

And he stopped. She stopped in turn, under the streetlamp by the ground entrance of her flat. There was no wind, for stars themselves were holding their breath.

"In fact, I was wondering if you could teach me. To play guitar."

And his mismatched eyes widened.

"Teach you," he parotted.

She felt the warmth missing from the air colour her cheeks but her resolve remained, even as she stepped forward. "Yes. It's only that you sang so wonderfully and… oh, God, I had no idea. I have an old guitar I've never much put to use, and I'm a bit of a novice myself, but I'd very much like to learn."

Something caught both their lungs at the same time and she felt she could choke on it, so she held her inhale like she could stave off the sensation. But he couldn't, instead exhaling a noisily startled scoff that crumpled the atmosphere around them.

 _Right._ Regret left a terrible taste in her mouth, and she parted her lips to rescind her statement. But he held up a hand as he caught his bearings by the throat and forced himself upright, placing the guitar case on the ground gingerly.

"Do forgive me, it's only that I've never had a pupil before. Or anyone as eager as you to consider learning from me."

She crossed her arms, much more lax. "And I'm surprised no one has asked you yet, with how rather extensive your talents are."

Was he… flushing? His collar rode too high up to confirm but she still found his embarrassment charming.

"I'll do it on one condition."

She narrowed her eyes, smile thin like a ribbon.

"I'll teach you the guitar _and_ train your voice as well."

Whatever courage fueled her body spluttered out in her chest and wiped any expression off her face. "You really want to hear my voice that badly."

"I don't see why you must be ashamed of it."

"That's sort of the point." She looked up at the disdainful sky then down at the quiet ground. "There's nothing much impressive about it."

"And see, that's where you're wrong."

She looked up at him. His footsteps were so silent she didn't notice when he closed the gap between them with one stride, and even though they were a streetlamp's width apart, she could feel how close he had been, just as he was in the record shop when she asked for Menhuin.

"What I said about kindred spirits," he said intently, his voice dancing with every word in a summer's dusk, "that still stands. It's strange, but… I feel as if I've been waiting for you for a very long time."

_Ah._

The birds began singing. She felt her mouth let a breath go and she shut it tight, afraid for whatever might come out of it had she not been just a bit more negligent.

"Alright," she said in the end. It was enough for both of them, but not for her.

The wind finally whisked by, unsatisfied too.

"This is me, actually," she said, pointing to the door.

He nodded, taking the case from the ground. "Wednesday, at the record shop. Bring yourself, that guitar of yours, and a song you want to sing."

She returned his gesture of a wave and watched as the lights avoided him on the way down the street. As he walked, he took the wind and the nightingales and every sound of the night with him, because the moment he was gone, it went quiet.

She came Wednesday, to the record shop, bringing that guitar of hers and _La Vie En Rose_ returning to its first home. Its second home had been the small ledge under the table that held her phonograph.

"You didn't have to bring the record," he chastised in a way that already automatically sounded like a teacher's reprimand, in the way she could tell that he was smiling behind. (And it was. His smile was very unnatural, like his face wasn't built for that sort of thing, but she appreciated the sight of it anyway.)

"But I wanted to be thorough," she replied.

"I said bring a song and she brought the whole damn tracklist." He stepped aside and unlatched the counter divider, and for a moment she thought Reza was going to barrel through it into the empty limbo of the shop.

She blinked at the empty space, then right back at him.

He tilted his head in an impatient welcome gesture. "Well, unless you want to crawl under the desk."

She rolled her eyes and handed him the guitar by the neck of the case before walking through. Whatever mist clouded the mystery of the shop unveiled itself from her vantage point, and a strange sensation settled over her when she realised just how close she'd been standing. He always smelt of a strange sort of cologne and a faint hint of coffee, and something altogether vintage, like the yellowing pages of a book.

"Reza!" he called into a space in the back room. "Are you busy?"

There was a brief silence before Reza's head poked through the frame.

"I'm supposed to answer yes, but I'm sure you'll find out that I'm lying somehow," the boy said.

"Great." His gloved hands clapped in faux enthusiasm. "I'll take Christine here upstairs for her music lesson, so I'll leave you in charge with the shop for the time being."

Reza stood by as the pair of them passed him. "Music lesson? Monsieur Erik, I wasn't aware you were giving out lessons."

"A private business on the side." He glanced back over his shoulder. "Unless it's something you're interested in as well."

Reza shook his head. "Records would be as far as I go."

Erik led the way on and she followed each footstep down to its placement. The boy waved a gentle hello at her, even as she disappeared into the backroom of the upstairs.

She had never been into the older buildings of town, but she often assumed they looked like this. Each floor they passed seemed vacant except for the rays of noonday sunlight drifting through the dusty windows. She counted six flights of stairs by the time he stopped at a door and fished for his keys in his pocket.

"We never did discuss money," she said, her pocket growing heavier at the notion.

"That won't be necessary," he replied too simply. "I didn't accept this offer of yours expecting anything in return."

She stayed quiet, even as the door unlocked with a click. That was wrong, and both of them knew it.

He stepped to the side and gestured. "After you."

His home looked naturally like his own, all sleek edges and perfected angles, minimal furnishing like he didn't fully unpack yet. There was no television set but the pristine loveseat faced the blank wall regardless. The piano, however, was what called her attention and seemed to demand it the most as it ate up whatever space remained.

The usual strangeness washed over her, which was a feeling she was more or less used to describe him aptly. But it felt like another layer of a familiar strangeness entering his home. The world held more pockets of places like this, she realised, and thus felt more odd than it did before.

"Did you think I was lying about being a pianist?" he called from behind her after the click of his door, placing the guitar on an armchair she didn't notice.

"I didn't," she said, but he was lying about something else.

He said nothing for a brief moment, but patted her case and gestured to the piano. "So may I?"

She nodded, unsure of what he was asking for but it clicked in place certainly when he unlatched the guitar from its case, removed his gloves and held it with an expertise that clearly didn't limit itself to just records.

"My, my." And he held it by the base and by the neck to observe the body patterns. "A 1950 Gibson. Excellent age and colour too."

"It was a gift," she explained. "From a family friend."

He took the guitar with him to the piano, where he sat on the bench with the instrument wedged between his elbow and lap. "Well, your family friend certainly has some taste and a glorious method for upkeep."

"We just kept it around. I only learned the basics, but nothing too advanced."

"Then we'll go over your basics, just to be thorough."

He played an E and he strummed the lowest string. It was hard not to watch his hands during the process.

"Seems as if you know a thing or two," she observed, "and not just about records."

"I know a thing or two about a number of subjects." Then the A, and the D. "In order to be a good salesman of music, it's a prerequisite to be rather learned in the subject, no?" Then the G. Then B.

She had a feeling he learned it the other way around. "You're not just a great keeper of records, sir, but also of secrets."

His silence confirmed it far too simply even for him. The guitar came to her from above her, and she plucked the thing from his arms like it was a fruit from a very dark tree.

He came back with his coat discarded, his sleeves rolled up partially halfway through his forearm, and the guitar she saw from the bar. Yet he held it with an ease that shouldn't have accompanied an instrument that appeared vaguely heavy.

"Now, then." With guitars on both their laps, he reached for the Piaf she brought and studied the tracklist intensely. "I suppose you have something in mind?"

 _"La Vie En Rose,"_ she replied. "It sounded simple for a guitar."

"Which it is. Let us begin with the notes. Have your basics taught you those?"

She nodded.

"Very well, so I should pass how frets and notations work too."

She nodded again. He blinked, and she would keep that small glint of both shock and relief she saw in her memory.

He gazed at the frets on his guitar, measuring the span of his fingers on them in a motion that resembled the crawling of a spider. "I'm assuming you know chords as well."

"A few, but nothing with frets. I'm afraid my fingers aren't accustomed to those yet."

"Lucky for you, _La Vie En Rose_ has no bar chords. So let us begin with not a strum, for I'm sure you're more than capable of that too. A plucking notation should suffice." He positioned his fingers carefully over the first three frets. "This is a…?"

"C chord."

He tilted his head in his nightingale gesture. "Very good. But the time signature of _La Vie_ is rather complicated for—"

"It's 6/8."

He stopped, and for a moment she thought his eyes glimmered gold. Perhaps savouring his amusement could be considered an enjoyable pastime.

She smiled back at him, a wolf's grin meeting a wolf. "You're not the only great keeper of secrets between us."

"Then I suppose I'd best make a habit of learning them too, albeit at a much faster pace than you with this instrument."

Ah, there he was. A nightingale's voice in the body of a wolf, in the body of a shadow that looked like a man. It seemed no great science now, that the lights of a stage would easily wipe those details away.

She copied his C with ease. "You underestimate me."

"I said I'd do no such thing. If anything, I expect great things from you."

Cold noon sunlight wafted through his windows and highlighted each angle of his face in a way that made it seem foreign to her. Darkness suited him much better, like the snugness of a coat or the comfort of an evening breeze.

"6/8 is the subset of a waltz tempo, so we shall play the notes in threes." He began by plucking the C chord, then halfway shifted his fingers over the strings. "Add your high E string as a sound accent, so that we can clearly distinguish it as rhythm."

She tried to hide a smile. Music had never felt so familiar a stranger, but one she would hug and bury the greatest hug into.

Her fingers struggled with the motion but she played the same notation he did, but much slower.

"Now," he said simply, placing his forearms over the curve of his own instrument, "could you sing it for me?"

She blinked, and the colour rose to her face. "So that's why."

Her shock mirrored his own perfectly, and they stood mirrors to one another for a while before he spoke. "That… would be a sufficient payment, yes."

So he _did_ lie.

She took in a shaky breath, and it felt she was before a crowd of thousands. "You said—"

"I know what I said." His voice was much stronger, much more frustrated, but it didn't seem targeted towards her.

She felt despair claw at her throat and prick at the skin of her hands. "You don't understand, Erik. There's a reason why I stopped singing."

"And there was a reason I started practicing again." He leaned closer, and the sun reflected off his skin of his fingers in a motion that mirrored four half-moon. "Remember _Faust._ Remember Marguerite. I'll say please, or sing anything you want in return. You could tell me you never wish to see my face again and I'll do it. Only allow me this one small pleasure, let me hear you sing, and you may have anything from me."

The way the words left his mouth was mesmerising.

"Alright," she said, warmth gathering at her nape. "Then say please."

In the half-light, his eyes looked like mismatched candles, glowing and dimming with an emotion she couldn't place. Reverence, no, not even desperation. It was the look of a man that could be on his knees.

"Please."

Her eyes blinked slow, and she moved to pluck a C.

"Alright. But don't say I didn't warn you."

_Remember Marguerite._

And she did remember. She remembered grace, and elegance, and poise. She remembered beauty and a confidence that she couldn't have. She remembered glittering jewels and eternal youth, she remembered a voice that sounded like starlight plucked from thin air.

She didn't have to be Marguerite. She needed to be Christine.

She went through the song with an ease that had never been there. Not in her auditions, not in front of Papa and Maman Valerius, or even Father. She feared mistakes she never made, tremors in her voice that were never heard, or mishearing of lyrics her accent did not trip over. Each string she plucked vibrated against her ribcage and it moved through her bones in slow, subtle motions. But the sensation was always there, that it was not simply her heart she was singing with.

It was silent after she sang the last note. There was no applause or even a breath, only the space that neither of them spoke in.

Then he made a sound that was both a laugh and a scoff.

"You were right. You should have warned me."

Her throat burned in hot shame, turning the veins of her hands and forearms black with guilt. "See, I told y—"

"No, not because it was terrible."

The expression on his face was unreadable, but only because it was adoration layered over awe, and that over amusement, and that over his usual stoic expression. She saw exactly where the emotions began to unravel at the seams, and it was beautiful.

"I've never heard anything like you, Christine."

Oh, God. No one could say those words to her ever again after him.

"I was right." He sat on the edge of his chair, and she was almost afraid his guitar would slip from the precarious position that it dangled over his knees. "I can't believe it. I was right about you."

She suddenly became aware of how her hair pricked at the skin of her neck, of the shifting of her clothes against her skin. "Right about what?"

"That I've been waiting for you for a very long time. I've already asked so much of you, but I ask that I keep tutoring you. I'll ensure you that you will play the guitar better than anyone in this town could, and enrich your voice so even Carlotta will think twice before singing in a room with you in it."

It was coming too fast, wave after wave after wave, until she was spinning in the riptide of his voice. "Erik…"

"Christine." The way he said her name was a caress of wind and a hurricane all at once. "Let me do this. As your friend."

If she hadn't been glowing when she sang then she certainly did now. Her smile was no longer a wolf's. And the world seemed a little bit bigger, and a little less lonely.

"Alright. As your friend."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Having a bit of not-expertise with the guitar myself, I had to learn how to play _La Vie En Rose_ to get the feel for this sort of chapter. Acoustic songs really do hit emotions in a way not a lot of things manage to do.
> 
> Erik's weird ugly side, like everything in this strange story, is also a slow burn. Yep, we'll have to wait for that disaster too.
> 
> Thank you to all of the people who have indulged in this little AU and left their very kind words. In truth, this AU is only half my own; I had a lot of help brainstorming it with a friend who actually came up with the idea to put it in the 60's and it turned out to be interesting for us both to look into what the sort of trend was with people in that decade. It also allowed me for a good excuse to watch _Breakfast at Tiffany's_ as many times as I wanted.


End file.
